By the second verse, dear friends   My head will burst, my life will end   So I'd like to start this one off by saying   Live and love      I was young and at home in bed   And I was hanging on the words some poem said   And thirty-one   I was impressionable, I was upsettable      I tried to make my breathing stop, my heart beat slow   So when my mom and John came in I would be cold      From a bridge on Washington Avenue   The year of 1972   Broke my bones and skull   And it was memorable      It was half a second and I was halfway down   Do you think I wanted to turn back around   And teach a class   Where you kiss the ass that I've exposed to you      And at the funeral the university   Cried at three poems they'd present in place of a broken me      I was breaking in a case of suds   At the brass rail, a fall-down drunk   With his tongue torn out   And his balls removed      And I knew that my last lines were gone   While stupidly I lingered on   Other wise men know   When it's time to go and so I should too      And so I fly into the brightest winter sun   Of this frozen town   I'm stripped down to move on   My friends, I'm gone      Well, I hear my father fall and I hear my mother call   And I hear the others all whispering, come home   I'm sorry to go, I loved you all so   But this is the worst trip I've ever been on      So hoist up the John B. sail   (Hoist up the John B. sail)   See how the main sail sets   (See how the main sail sets)      I've folded my heart in my head   And I wanna go home   With a book in my hand   In the way I had planned   Well, this is the worst trip I've ever been on      Hoist up the John B. sail   (Hoist up the John B. sail)   See how the main sail sets   (See how the main sail sets)      I've folded my heart in my head   And I wanna go home   With a book in each hand   (With a book in each hand)   In the way I had planned   (In the way I had planned)      I feel so broke up   I wanna go home